Yoga for Athletes: Strength, Flexibility, and Focus

For all levels of athletic or yoga experience; no prior yoga experience required.

Athletes are often turned off by yoga because it seems too hard, too easy, or out of sync with their training. Triathlete, coach, and yoga teacher Sage Rountree demystifies yoga and explains exactly how it fits with training and competition. Yoga’s emphasis on form, focus, and breath translates to increased efficiency and enjoyment in your sport and your life.

This weekend, learn poses to increase your range of motion and flexibility, especially in the hips and hamstrings. Spend time cultivating sport-specific core strength and balance, examine yoga as mental training, and learn how incorporating yoga’s approach to mind-body integration can make you a better athlete. Practicing the poses and techniques taught in this workshop increases your flexibility, core strength, stability, balance, and physical and mental endurance while lowering recovery time and risk of injury.

Yoga for Athletes Five-Day Teachers’ Intensive

As more and more athletes credit yoga with taking their performance to the next level, the field of yoga for athletes is growing in exciting directions. Specializing in yoga for athletes allows you to share yoga’s benefits with a new, receptive population. Sage Rountree, a pioneer in the field, has multifaceted experience as a coach, athlete, and teacher working with endurance-sports athletes and collegiate teams.

This five-day intensive on yoga for sports training is designed for yoga teachers interested in working with athletes of all sports; it will also be useful for coaches, PE teachers, and personal trainers. In lecture, group discussion, led yoga sequences, and practice teaching, we will cover:

Physiology: consider the role yoga plays in the context of a training cycle so you can best serve your students

Psychology: understand the needs, abilities, and limitations that athletes bring to a yoga practice

Pedagogy: learn to modify classes for athletes of various sports, differing levels of experience, and all points in the training cycle

Profession: define your business goals, structure a working plan, and embark on a successful career teaching yoga to athletes and everyone

Participants will gain a new awareness of the parallels between yoga and sports training and will leave feeling empowered to teach yoga to athletes in studio, gym, team, or one-on-one settings. The workshop may also be used for CEUs and CECs, including Yoga Alliance contact hours and five USAT CEU credits; contact Sage for details.

This intensive parallels the content of Sage’s online course on teaching yoga to athletes. After the training, you can choose to upgrade to a certification track. Upon completion of a take-home exam and submission of a teaching video, participants who are already teaching at the Yoga Alliance 200-hour level or have comparable experience will receive a certification in teaching yoga to athletes. In addition, the certification track includes free access to the online version of the course, which contains resources and specific sequences for working with different sports and needs, as well as ongoing support from Sage and your colleagues.